Site News Introducing KH-Vids 9.0

Discussion in 'Community News & Projects' started by Misty, Jun 10, 2015.

  1. Misty gimme kiss

    Joined:
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    It’s been a long time coming, but I’m proud to officially unveil KH-Vids 9.0.

    [​IMG]

    Those who have been with us for several years know that it has been somewhat of a tradition to redesign KH-Vids every year, and while there have been lapses, I’ve always enjoyed revisiting and updating the site’s appearance so regularly. For the ninth (numbered) iteration of our site, however, I decided to tackle a rather ambitious goal: creating a style framework.

    What does that mean, exactly? Well, to put it in layman’s terms, every year I build a new style for KH-Vids completely from scratch. This involves a lot of work, and much of it is simply adding support for the many custom pages, features, and systems we have on KH-Vids. Redoing all of that every year gets tiresome and delays the process. Think of the KH-Vids Framework as a sort of custom base style that I can develop off of, rather than having to repeat all that work!

    That’s great and all, but what does that mean for you – the end user? Well, with that base, it will be a lot easier to update styles, add new features that we invent or you guys request, and best of all, offer multiple different styles to our users. You’ll notice that we’re launching KH-Vids 9.0 with both Light and Dark variants! Basically…
    • Creating new styles is faster and easier
    • Increased consistency between styles
    • Styles will no longer be deprecated/deactivated once replaced
    • Styles can be updated easily & all at once (when a bug is fixed on one style, it's fixed on all of them)
    There are a ton of new features and updates hidden within this update, and it’d take ages for me to detail them all in this post. I’m going to be trying something new now, not just for stylistic updates but for any new features we’d like to detail on this site – Have You Seen? posts! Within the Feedback & Assistance section, I’ll be creating individual threads that highlight some of these changes and help users acclimate themselves with them.

    Similarly, because of the expanse of the KH-Vids Framework and KH-Vids 9.0 (this update also brings us to the latest version of XenForo, 1.4.7), we’ll be taking bug reports a little differently now. If you notice something that doesn’t look (or work) quite right, you can now post in our special bug report section and I’ll take care of it, rather than flooding this thread and creating a jumbled mess.

    I’d also like to extend a thank you to the entire staff team for their feedback throughout the creation process, but especially to @libregkd , who helped me in creating the framework with his code expertise.

    We hope you guys enjoy the new look!
     
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Comments

Discussion in 'Community News & Projects' started by Misty, Jun 10, 2015.

    1. Hayabusa
      Hayabusa
      But why can't we be like Windows and skip to 10 ;.;

      It looks neat so far, gonna take some time to adjust of course.
    2. Amaury
      Amaury
      For the bug reports, do you want us to create individual reports for each bug we find or one thread listing all the bugs we find?

      Also, FANTASTIC job, Misty, libregkd, and everyone else who helped!
    3. Technic☆Kitty
      Technic☆Kitty
      I'll be the first to admit it. My mind has been completely blown. I knew you were putting a lot of effort into making this but ... wow. This style is a strange mix between flat and pop, and I love every bit of it. The font-awesome was a very nice touch. So much amazing packed in a small little screen.

      Congratulations to Misty and all the staff members! The new style looks better than words can describe.


      -Nights
    4. Anixe
      Anixe
      Some of the font is weird for me, but overall, it's very nice~
    5. Trigger
      Trigger
      i like it
    6. ♥♦♣♠Luxord♥♦♣♠
      ♥♦♣♠Luxord♥♦♣♠
      Looks really solid, even in 4k. Great job to everyone involved in this, we cannot thank you enough.
    7. Misty
      Misty
      I honestly considered it! Nine isn't my favorite number.
      There's now a sticky in the section with some information -- thought I'd open up the board and then set everything in order in terms of prefixes and what have you.
      I do love the Material aesthetic that's taken over right now and naturally wanted to implement it -- I had that intention going into KH-Vids 8.0, but didn't go as far as I would have liked. I'm glad it paid off this time around!
      The font will definitely be an adjustment for some people! I'm a big font nerd, and I went through a lot of options before settling on Source Sans Pro. It was actually used for the headers / emphasized text in KH-Vids 8.0 and it actually reminds me a bit of the font in the Kingdom Hearts games. If you're having readability issues, though, that's major and feel free to post in the bug reports section and I'll take a look (like fonts being too small in places).

      It's also my hope to, in a future update, give users the option to specify what font they'd like to use site-wide without the need for a browser extension.
    8. Amaury
      Amaury
      @Misty, what fonts is 9.0 utilizing?
    9. Misty
      Misty
      You posted around the same time as me (see above), but the majority of the text is Source Sans Pro. Some headers or emphasized text is in Open Sans Condensed, which is also used in the header. All these fonts are free, so if you don't want to deal with Google Fonts (which we use to serve them), you can download and install them to your machine.
    10. Technic☆Kitty
      Technic☆Kitty
      It most definitely did. When I saw you guys were making the move, I had a million thoughts rushing through my mind of what the new style could possibly look like. I was stuck between thinking you'd go for flat or maybe just keep with the aesthetic flow we've seen over the last few updates. Never did I imagine it would be a beautiful mesh of the two. I can't honestly remember seeing a flat-pop style anywhere on the web. It was either one or the other. This isn't just an achievement for KHV, you've managed to do something few possibly could.

      Again, well done to you and everyone who worked on the Framework and the style. Kudos all around. I never want to leave this place again and it's all your fault ... job well done ;)


      -Nights
    11. Fearless
      Fearless
      SCREECHES ABOUT IT BEING DIFFERENT

      but seriously it's lovely
    12. Hayabusa
      Hayabusa
      Where are the signatures in this thread?
    13. Amaury
      Amaury
      This is more of an article. Threads in this and the Kingdom Hearts News & Updates forum appear in an article layout.
      Last edited: Jun 10, 2015
    14. . : tale_wind
      . : tale_wind
      YOOOO THIS NEW THEME IS HELLA

      Awesome job, all!
    15. nickoboyzx
      nickoboyzx
      it's so cool...
      there's a new thing here's and there's
      good job everyone
    16. Iskandar
      Iskandar
      Question: What did you use to make this? I must know so I can break it up in Dreamweaver when I get the chance for fun
    17. CloakedThunder
      CloakedThunder
      I really like the new style, It looks great. Well done everyone
    18. Miles
      Miles
      Well IMO the colors don't go well. The new orange. The font is fine but the spacing of the template and text is really weird. Also the [New] box seems to be cutting off on the right side. As always I still like the layout and style of KHvids template. Just giving some feedback.
    19. ♥♦♣♠Luxord♥♦♣♠
      ♥♦♣♠Luxord♥♦♣♠
      I am currently using the light theme and I think the color scheme is actually quite refreshing, this of course isn't to say that the stuff the staff have put out in the past was bad. Of course everyone is entitled to their opinions, and they are indeed valid. However that being said, this one really gets a +1 from me. I quite like it.